Here's French garage rock from five guys who have soaked up a fair bit of the output of The Lyres, at a guess. I caught them in the flesh a couple of years ago, supporting a reformed Screaming Tribesmen in France's best rock and roll tavern, Mondo Bizzaro in Rennes, and this four-track 10-inch EP sounds like they do live.

_{Matt Allison photo}

Superchunk
+ Smudge
The Sydney Crowbar, Leichhardt
Friday, December 13, 2024

1991 has gone down in folklore as “The Year That Punk Broke” and in many ways it’s true. A wave of underground music swept across music channels - in particular in the USA.

It’s also that there was a surge in guitars being bought and we can attribute this mostly to Nirvana. Scratch under the surface, and a crop of new bands had been springing up like green shoots across America for years. Releasing records on labels like Matador, SST and SubPop, they’d been criss-crossing America in broken vans, living on pills, booze, junk food and small shows  

All the action was being documented in fanzines and the underground bible Alternative Press. For me, it was even cooler than the British wave of punk as it was more street-level and organic. Names like Afghan Wigs, Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Laughing Hyenas, Mudhoney, TAD, Pixies and Lemonheads were the staple diet in the period prior to Nirvana releasing “Nevermind”.

The Saints ’73-‘78
Kim Salmon and The Surrealists
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Friday 22 November, 2024

Words: THE BARMAN
Photos: MURRAY BENNETT

Polarising was the Word of the Night. You could have argued that there was no way Mark Arm would successfully replace the late Chris Bailey in a reconstituted version of the Saints and if you did, you probably didn’t go to the show anyway.

It’s a truth that Arm’s yowl is as far removed from the patented snarl of Bailey as Brisbane is from Seattle. If you didn’t take Arm at his word that he wasn’t trying to fill the original singer’s shoes, you were never going to dig this show. He clearly isn’t Bailey and didn’t try to be.

_{The Saints '73-'78 take flight. Nazz Nassari photo.} 

The Saints ’73-‘78
+ The Double Agents
Hindley Street Music Hall, Adelaide
Thursday, November 14, 2024
WORDS: Robert Brokenmouth
IMAGES: Nazz Nassari

The media release says the tour coincides with the release of The Saints' “’(I’m) Stranded’ boxset, a deluxe four-disc set available on both LP and CD, which serves as “the final word on album that is one of the all-time great Australian records and as well as an all-time classic punk rock record."

This boxset is long, long overdue. It is essential. And I hope they release a record of these current shows. Put me down for two, thanks.

On stage: original members Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay, with Peter Oxley (a former Sunnyboy who's been playing alongside Kuepper for seven years or more), Mick Harvey (former Birthday Party/Bad Seeds and expert musical arranger and accompanist) and Mark Arm (best known for Mudhoney, but similarly accomplished with a wide variety of bands).

Van Ruin
+ The Cants
Link and Pin Café, Woy Woy, NSW
Friday, September 21, 2024
Photos; Tony McNamara

 The Link and Pin has become a special venue that has created its own scene and mythology. It has own mix of outsiders, rock pigs’ mis-fits, eccentrics and those that you will not find at the local RSL club poker machine room.  

It’s located outside Sydney at Woy Woy on the New South Wales Central Coast. In its own unusual way, the venue has been celebrating Octoberfest in September and I say, why not?  Bavarian lederhosen and Ramones tee-shirts make for a great look.

_{Glenn Morris of The On and Ons.}

The On and Ons
(aka Clyde Bramley's 70th Birthday Bash)
+ The Hovering Spooks
Marrickville Bowling Club, NSW
Sunday, September 15, 2024

Sunday afternoons at the Bowlo have become a Sydney institution for live music goers of a certain vintage. This one had the added attraction of being a celebration of On and Ons bassist and all-round nice guy Clyde Bramley’s 70th birthday, so there was ample reason for the big crowd in evidence.

First up, The Hovering Spooks and the bands that their members haven’t played in can be accommodated on the big end of a pin. These Spooks bill themselves as psych but that label’s about as imprecise as they come these days. How about pre-proto-punk dressed-down glam?